Aphorisms

You may have noticed the little sayings that I place randomly at the bottoms of every page. I like to impart my tidbits of wisdom on anyone who happens into Project Paradox. However, sometimes the meaning behind my aphorisms isn’t entirely clear. That’s why I put together this list explaining each one of them.

“Sanity is the curse of mundanity.”

To those of us who pride ourselves on being unique, nothing is worse than being ordinary. This saying draws out the parallel between a life that fits into a neat, orderly mold and a mind that does the same. If one is to free oneself from a prescribed lifestyle, one must first break free of a scripted mindset, and vice versa.

“My experience has taught me to assume that all people are stupid until proven intelligent.”

Sometimes a person can seem perfectly smart and then say or do something that is perfectly idiotic. This goes along with the old adage, “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” Just because somebody seems smart doesn’t mean that they are, and most people will readily prove to you just how stupid they are given very little observation.

“People who use the expression, ‘Better than sex,’ obviously aren’t doing it correctly.”

I use this expression more jokingly than not, although I do think that coitus is an incredibly enjoyable and fulfilling experience that can be more or less so depending on performance. In all honesty, it ranks as one of the best things in life, but takes a back seat to love if nothing else.

“Women shall forever be right, even when they aren’t correct.”

I’ve written this on message boards at work and had women walk up and agree wholeheartedly with it. The real credit, however, goes to my wife, who will win an argument with me even if she doesn’t agree with herself by the end.

“Individuality has no respect for propriety.”

To put it another way, you can’t give much regard to what society considers normal and proper if you want to be genuinely unique. An individual is someone who breaks barriers of normalcy.

“Perception is reality.”

This has been the crux of many of my philosophical arguments. Quite simply, we have no way of ascertaining whether or not anything other than ourselves exists. We know only that which we perceive through our senses, which can easily be fooled by internal or external factors. Extending this, consider conditions of psychopathology in which the patient is delusional. To someone suffering from such a disorder, certain elements of their perception make things which the concensus says aren’t there seem very real.

“Love is the best thing in life.”

I can’t emphasize enough how deeply fulfilling my relationship with my wife is. Anyone who has ever been in love can testify to this. You can extoll it as a spiritual state or explain it away as selfish genes driving us to pairbond. Either way, it is still one of the most profound experiences of the human condition.

“Morality is overrated.”

Many people live their lives constrained by arbitrary moral edicts, often because of religion. In my experience, such people suffer a great deal of internal anguish, feeling guilty for thoughts or actions that are, quite honestly, a natural part of being human. One shouldn’t go through life ashamed of being human, and so it is important not to take morality too seriously.

“There’s no rule that says you can’t cheat.”

Okay, by definition this statement is false, since any rule intrinsically defines how it can be broken and that it shouldn’t. However, it’s nice to go out of bounds for the right reasons once in awhile, and this is just fun to say when you do.

“Insanity is only a matter of degree.”

Nobody is perfectly sane. We all have our mental idiosyncracies, our insecurities, our fears, and our personality quirks. Thus, to call someone insane is just to say that they are more insane than the average person.

“Never trust anyone who smiles too much.”

We all have a bad day, whether it results from negative events or from a plain-old bad mood. Thus, if someone always seems happy, they’re concealing their real feelings from the world, at least part of the time. Furthermore, if this persistent happiness is at all convincing, then the person in question isn’t just a liar, they’re a good liar.

“People are stupid, and then they die.”

I consider this statement a positive affirmation when dealing with stupid people. Just remember, when someone is showing how ignorant they are and frustrating you in the process, they’ll die one day. Often, stupid people die by doing something stupid (if you don’t believe me, check out the Darwin Awards), so rest assured that the person will get what’s coming to them eventually.

“People choose their own misery.”

Being unhappy is one thing, but being perpetually miserable and discontented with one’s life and state of being is another. I’ve had the misfortune of conversing with people who seem to delight in telling me just how bad their lives are. I have no pity for such people, because they seem contented to do nothing to change their situation. For one reason or another, they choose to remain miserable.

“Family that you can count on is the only family that matters.”

Extended or estranged family members are, at best, close acquaintances. To really qualify as family, you have to be willing to go out of your way for one another, to support one another no matter the situation or the consequences. This, I think, is the only sense in which the word family really has any meaning.

“Doing a job right could be a waste of time, but doing a job wrong is always a waste of time.”

I have had the displeasure of working with people who wasted more time and effort avoiding work than it would have taken to do their jobs correctly in the first place. Frankly, it seems to me that it’s often harder to be lazy than productive.